


symbiosis

by KathrynShadow



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, Martha mothers everyone in the universe and this is canon, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sort Of, contained exclusively in chapter 2 so it's easily skippable, dying is hard on you as it turns out, hair petting, sappy as heck, the logistics of coming back from the dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-21 10:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathrynShadow/pseuds/KathrynShadow
Summary: “We take care of each other,” Bruce says, and it can’t be a lie because it’s avow.Going forward, not looking back. “We weren’t doing it before. I intend to change that.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amaronith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaronith/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got super out of hand and will probably end up having a part 2 at some point bc I have no self-control

Part of Clark—most of Clark, really—doesn't expect Bruce to stick around long. Poke his nose in, be frankly terrifying about the bank and the house and the  _ bank _ (and that had to have been an exaggeration, right? That can't be possible?), and vanish around a corner never to be seen in Kansas again. He figures maybe siccing Mom on him will work for a few more minutes, and maybe at some point in those few more minutes Clark can figure out what the hell he's actually supposed to  _ say _ to the man, but then they're just getting on so well talking about how honestly his stab wound healed up just fine and yes Alfred is doing well that it—

It feels wrong to interrupt. Clark gives him a smile that hopefully doesn’t look as weird as it feels, starts unpacking the nearest box just for something to do with his hands, and pretends not to notice Bruce watching his every move.

Just because Bruce brought him back, because they’re working together now when the world’s at stake, doesn’t erase everything that happened—before. Something in Clark still freezes at the sound of concrete cracking, anything that sounds like the snap of bone; he certainly can’t begrudge Bruce his own scars.

* * *

Bruce allows himself to be maneuvered into staying for dinner, which is reasonable; and then he lingers afterwards, which is not. He and Clark have things to discuss, sooner rather than later—but it feels too intrusive to do it like this, to drag him back into the land of the living just to immediately throw him into another war and to follow it up by cornering him in his childhood home—

But he has to, at some point. It’s frankly a miracle that nobody in Smallville has seen him already, or possibly that they have and they just dismissed it or haven't said anything; it's possible, he supposes, that the entire town knows what Clark can do and have all collectively agreed to protect him, but he hasn’t put faith in that brand of optimism for years. Half the world hated Superman the first time; why would his hometown be any different?

(He’s an adult, and bulletproof to boot. He can take care of himself. Bruce’s protection is laughable at best; at worst, it’s an insult, a threat, mere days in Clark’s mind after all of Batman’s resources and focus had been trained on  _ murdering _ him.

But Bruce hurt him, and failed him, and watched him die, felt the last trickle of blood from Clark’s ruined chest sluice over his gauntlet, and he  _ can’t _ —)

“I’ll sort out a room for you, Bruce,” Martha says briskly, standing up, as if they decided a long while back that Bruce was going to spend the night; the kind of brute force hospitality that would tip him over into looking for alternate exits or traps hiding in the corners if it came from anyone else.

Clark is taking care of the dishes, the water splashing in a loud steady stream. His head still turns just a fraction of an inch; that got his attention. (Because he wasn’t expecting it? Or because he was, and didn’t want to?)

Neither of them have any reason to trust him. Martha may have found whatever reason she needed to move past what he did, but he won’t force Clark to spend the night in the same house as the man who stalked and nearly killed him.

(Bruce’s confession to Martha was a rushed thing, early in their association, as much emotional self-harm as a desire for her to  _ know _ who she was befriending. She’d not been what anyone would call  _ happy, _ but she’d just looked out over the fields—towards the graves, as if she could see them at this distance as well as her son would have—and pursed her lips. “You did right by him in the end,” she said, after just enough of a pause that Bruce dared to think he wouldn’t be getting out of this unscathed. “I think that’s what he’d have cared about too.”)

“That’s not necessary,” Bruce says with a chagrined half-smile. “If I stay much longer, Alfred’ll file a missing person report, and I prefer to only make him do that once per decade.”

Martha laughs. “You can call him,” she says. “I figure you got the house back, you can sleep in it. Let Alfred have a quiet night in.”

That feels like a surprisingly low blow for such a pleasant conversation. Clark’s mouth twitches, but he keeps his smile to the corners of his downturned eyes as he scrubs at a pan. “I shouldn’t, really,” Bruce says, and he knows how weak that is compared to the dozens of legitimate-sounding excuses (and real reasons) he could toss out instead. “I just need to talk to Clark before I go.”

“Mm,” Martha says, like she’s won. “Clark, talk him into staying, would you?” She doesn’t even raise her voice to call across the house, just turns her eyes towards the kitchen sink, half a lifetime of dealing with enhanced senses condensed into unthinking habit.

(If Bruce had just seen any of this before, if he’d only thought to look—)

Clark snickers. “I can try, Mom,” he says. “But I can’t promise anything.”

Martha grins. “Sure you can,” she says, and then, “I’ll leave you to it,” and then she vanishes down the hall towards the linen closet.

Not the best sign that she’s letting Bruce go, but then he could always slip out while she’s not looking—even if she is one of the only people on the planet he’d feel guilty about doing that to afterwards.

Clark slots a saucepan into the corner of a drying rack and doesn’t look up when Bruce approaches. Steam curls up from the sink thicker and more enthusiastically than seems comfortable from dishwater, but then the sink itself will probably melt from the heat before Clark gets so much as a blister.

(How far does that go? Bruce knows that his senses are all enhanced, including physical sensations; does he feel the exact degree of heat, just without the accompanying pain of injury? Does it all blur together after a while, some nebulous thing that he knows is dangerous for a human but that doesn’t particularly register?  _ Does _ it hurt, and he’s just grown used to it, or doesn’t react unless there’s damage on top of it?)

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Clark says under his breath, as if Martha could possibly hear. “I’ll cover for you if you’re thinking about climbing through a window.”

Bruce hesitates mid-breath. “It’s not... that...” he says, has a horrible sinking feeling that this is just how talking to Superman is going to be for the rest of time, and tries to hide his unease by smiling at it. “You don’t owe me anything, Clark. Including putting up with me when you don’t have to.”

Clark’s brow furrows in a way that would be terrifying if he were in the suit. And if it were a year ago. Now, he mostly just looks confused, and a little worried. “Why wouldn’t I want to?”

It's as though he has, amongst his frankly unreasonable number of abilities and senses, a deep and pervasive knowledge of exactly what will make Bruce the most off-balanced.

"Well, I—" he says, overcome with the full comprehension of exactly how ridiculous it is that he has to  _ explain this, _ "I tried to kill you, for one thing. Almost managed it by myself."

"I'm not so sure you could have gotten that far," Clark says, fishing in the water for the last of the pans.

Bruce's throat feels heavy. "That makes one of us," he says.

Clark shrugs. "You brought me back, didn't you?"

"It's what anyone with the resources would have done."

Superman laughs to himself. "Okay," he says. "But I'm still grateful for it. And no matter how you feel about it, I figure you wouldn't go through all of that trouble just to undo it the second Mom's not looking."

But emotions aren't rational things, and just because that's completely true doesn't mean that it can overcome PTSD. Still, it doesn't feel like the best idea to try to convince Clark that fear is absolutely a normal and healthy response at this juncture. Or to try and pry if Clark is just lying to make Bruce feel better.

"No," he agrees. "I wouldn't."

Clark smiles like one of them has figured something out. "You don't have to stay if you aren't comfortable, though," he says.

Bruce has no idea if that means he's won or lost, and decides therefore not to dwell on it either way. "I just wanted to go over some logistics with you before I go," he says.

The sink gurgles as Clark knocks the plug out of the drain. (The motion is as effortlessly quick as if Clark were human and only had to fear a human level of strength. Bruce knows better, but that doesn't mean it isn't almost unnerving to see.) "Logistics," he echoes.

"Clark Kent and Superman shouldn't both come back from the dead at the same time," Bruce says. "I don't know if you've already been noticed here or not, but it's better not to risk it."

Clark sobers all at once and it's difficult not to feel like Bruce has said something wrong. "Oh," he says. "Right. I guess I—" A laugh that doesn't quite come out as one. "I've been kind of putting off thinking about that. You know, I haven't even asked Lois how I died? The official story, anyway. I was there for the real one."

He rambles when he's nervous. Bruce knew that; it had come up in one of his visits to Martha after her son's death, when the sharpness of it had faded enough that she could reminisce without pain. He notes the accuracy of her statement and doesn't think about how this is the first time he's seen it. "Yes," he says, with a small and slightly off-balance laugh. "I suppose you were." He clears his throat. "Officially, you were crushed by debris during the event. Closed casket funeral, for obvious reasons."

Clark hesitates. "Right," he says.

Bruce doesn't say how much of the cover story was his doing, his idea,  _ just in case _ he could twist some obscure tech out of the scout ship one day to fix at least one thing in his life. "Which means," he presses on, instead, "Clark Kent doesn't have to  _ stay _ dead." Superman's eyes snap to Bruce's face, expression— "He just shouldn't come back the same week that Superman does, after having died the same day Superman did in the same place, killed by the same thing."

"Well," Clark says, with an awkward little smile on the corner of his mouth. "Not  _ exactly _ the same thing." He seems, finally, to remember what he was in the middle of doing, drying his hands off on a towel draped over his shoulder before hanging it on the oven door. "How long?"

Bruce shrugs, forcing himself to look around the room like a normal person instead of staring constantly at Clark, still trying to get used to the idea of him living and breathing and not hating him so far. "A few months," he says. "Long enough to get a good cover story, fake a paper trail."

Clark raises an eyebrow at him, turning to lean back against the counter. "I don't even want to know how much experience you have doing that," he drawls.

"Comes with the territory," Bruce says mildly. He can't tell if he's smiling too often to be reassuring.

A snort. "Right." Clark shakes his head, smiling silently at the floor. A handful of seconds pass; Bruce doesn't count them. "You're sure nobody will notice?" he asks then, sobering as he looks back up.

Bruce leans his shoulder against the doorframe. "Someone will," he says. "But people have a tendency to... overlook things that don't make sense to them. Or that do make sense, but not in a way that they like." As if they don't both have altogether too much experience with that phenomenon.

Clark looks like he's chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thinks about it. (Can he hurt himself doing that? He's invulnerable to almost everything from this world, but Kryptonians can clearly injure and kill each other even without the benefit of kryptonite; if he bites his lip while eating, does it still break the skin?) "Okay," he says. "Just tell me what to do."

Bruce balks. He didn't really have a  _ reason _ to think that Clark wouldn't go along with it (except for the obvious matter of who was suggesting it), but...

It's been too long since he worked alongside anyone but Alfred. Much too long.

"It doesn't really matter where you're laying low, as long as it's nowhere that you would normally be," he says. "Diana is nicely out of the way, depending on how your French is—"

"Bad," Clark says with a rueful grin. "It's bad."

Bruce diplomatically avoids laughing. Mostly. Diana's spoiled him, in a way; the only other metahuman he knew with anything even close to Superman's range of influence, and she was effortlessly multilingual by her very nature. Part of him had assumed, given everything else that Clark could do without even trying, that Superman would be the same way.

It's somewhat reassuring to know that there is at least  _ one _ thing where they're on approximately equal footing.

"Fair enough," he says. "I haven't asked around with the rest of the League, but I'm sure any of them would be happy to help. If you don't mind being Superman more often than usual, it wouldn't be surprising for him to be spotted in the Manor once it's properly donated and rebuilt for the headquarters. And, in the meantime... Alfred has been complaining about how empty the house has been lately." He doubts that Clark is exactly the company that Alfred has in mind, given how long it's been since he talked to either Dick or Kate on a regular basis, but—

(Oh, who is he kidding? Alfred doesn't care who it is.)

Clark looks surprised, understandably. But not concerned—and that face is always so goddamn open that it's hard to misinterpret it as good acting. "I'm assuming you wouldn't mind either," he says.

Bruce swallows. "I thought you would," he says, which isn't exactly an answer except for the ways that it is.

Clark blinks at him, then chuckles. "I just want to be where I'll cause the least trouble," he says.

_You're_ **_Superman,_** Bruce thinks, but doesn't say. "I have more space than I know what to do with," he does. "You wouldn't even have to see me if you didn't want to."

There's a tiny furrow in that brow, but whatever Clark was thinking about saying is erased by the sound of Martha's footsteps padding back into earshot.

"I sorted out the sofa bed," she says, sounding just out of breath enough to fire up a stab of guilt. (Bruce considers the idea that it's on purpose and, worryingly, can't entirely disprove it.) "You boys sort yourselves out?"

"I think so," Clark says, looking at Bruce, and something in his resolve cracks.

"It's beginning to look like I don't have a choice," he says, a final plea for help.

Martha is not merciful. "Damn right," she says cheerfully.

* * *

Clark isn't looking forward to sleeping.

Okay, that's... technically an understatement. He hadn't actually wanted to sleep for months even before his death, every day as Superman adding another layer and another and another to his collection of nightmares; half the time, it's hard to get far enough along to even have the nightmares with all the things he can hear happening. He can't imagine that it'll get any easier now that he has... well, now that he has so much  _ more. _

He would put the suit back on, but Mom would know that he was out hero-ing when he should have been asleep; and as much as he knows that he doesn't  _ need _ to sleep that much, technically, he also knows that she'd worry. (Maybe rightfully so, this time. He's been through a lot, but he's never died before. He feels pretty normal, but taking it easy for a few days is probably a good idea, right?)

He used to chat with Lois, sometimes, when it got harder; God knows she doesn't keep a normal sleep schedule even when she isn't in a different timezone altogether. It's just... he's not really sure that that would be the best idea right now. She was happy to see him, and the stress and sudden sharp relief of being alive again and of having at least one person there who made any  _ sense _ had been almost overwhelming; but that doesn't really mean that they can just go right back to the way things were before. Whether or not she's moved on (and he really should have asked that at some point, shouldn't he?), he can definitely see her needing some time to adjust. All of that mourning and then he just bursts out of the ground and starts throwing the ruins of a monument at his allies—

Okay, he also needs some time.

Mom would listen, because she always does; but he can't in good conscience wake her up and start rambling about his own problems when she lost her only child on the same day she was abducted and nearly killed too. Let her have at least a little span of time when everything's okay before he lets his emotional state slip. He's on his own.

It's fine. It's okay. He's been tuning things out since he was a kid; hell, he spent years just not listening to the whole world because of his father's fears. He can spend one night not listening because he honestly isn't sure if he would be more of a help than a hindrance right now.

Clark spends the first hour and a half reading—with all of the lights out, so it's less likely that Mom will suspect he's still awake. He almost feels a little bit tired then, so he spends the next hour or so lying in bed staring at the ceiling or the wall or the insides of his eyelids, debating whether he wants to try reading a little more; but then that just makes him remember all of the actual real-world events that he's missed out on, and that's not exactly the most comforting thought either. There are twenty-six house fires in easy earshot. They're being taken care of, it's okay, they don't need him, he shouldn't—

He feels almost grateful when he hears a sharp squawk of movement from the mattress springs downstairs, Bruce's slow even breathing suddenly breaking into a gasp. And then he feels terrible about it, but by that point he's already most of the way down the stairs, and if there's a chance that he can help Bruce is it really that bad that he's happy for the distraction?

Bruce jerks halfway off of the unfolded bed when Clark appears in the doorway, and then his body loses its tension all at once when he recognizes who it is. "Jesus," he mutters under his breath, reaching up to rub his forehead with a shaky hand.

"No," Clark says inanely. "It's just me."

It's possibly the dumbest thing he could have said, but it makes Bruce laugh. It's a tense laugh that's definitely at least part pity, but it's a laugh nonetheless, so he'll count it as a win. "Not the first time someone's made that mistake, I'll bet," he says, voice sleep-rough.

Clark winces. "I try not to encourage it," he says.

Bruce snorts, sitting up and leaning his elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Well, coming back from the dead won't help," he says dryly.

"I didn't have that much of a choice," Clark points out, and immediately regrets it when he hears Bruce's heartbeat falter.

"I'm sorry it happened the way it did," Bruce says, looking up. "But I'm not sorry that we did it. That I—asked the others to help."

That's new. Clark figured that Bruce had a say in his resurrection, especially given how ready he was to accept the blame before Clark calmed down; but once he had calmed down, it seemed ludicrous to give him too much credit for the act. It was weird to think of Bruce working with so many other metahumans, given how  _ solitary _ he seemed to be; definitely weird to think of him admitting when he needed help, and whose help it might be, even just having known him for a few cumulative hours. And even if he'd changed his mind on whether Clark ought to die, that didn't mean that he now thought the world was safer with Superman in it.

But. His suggestion? His idea? (Just because of his regret, or for the strategy of it, or...?)

Anyway. It puts it in a different light, that’s all.

“I’m glad you did,” Clark remembers to say before Bruce has a chance to mistranslate his silence. “Believe me. It’s taking some getting used to, but I’m  _ really _ happy I’m alive.”

The corners of Bruce’s eyes crinkle, his mouth pulling back into a lopsided smile; he inhales, but pauses and lets the breath go without saying anything. He straightens his back a little, seems to actively try to look less exhausted. “A lot of people feel the same way,” he murmurs.

Clark grins wanly. “I guess I got more popular when I was dead,” he says. “Public opinion seemed pretty divided last I checked.”

He only barely has time to regret his choice of words before Bruce’s expression carefully deadens. “The world was worse without you in it," he says. "The people who didn't realize that before you died, learned it after."

Clark can't imagine that it changed much of anything in Gotham; he'd never been there as anyone but himself, so it's not as though he could have gained much of a personal reputation there. But maybe he's wrong, or maybe Bruce is just speaking for himself and pretending that it's more general than that.

"Well," he says inadequately. "I'm here to help." He clears his throat, shifting his weight to his other foot, carefully rolling one of his ankles to work out an imaginary stiffness in it. "Which is... why I'm here, actually. Wanted to check if you were alright."

Bruce raises his eyebrows, politely confused. "At..." Casts about for a moment, finds his phone underneath the blanket, squints against the pale light of the lock screen. (Clark doesn't want to pry, but his eyes are immediately drawn to it; it's Bruce, flanked by a teenaged boy and a twenty-something man Clark doesn't recognize, the latter's arm taking up a quarter of the frame as he held the camera up. Bruce looks younger, but at closer examination, it doesn't seem to be by that much. Less tired, perhaps. Clark knows just enough to not want to ask.) "Three AM?"

Okay. So. If Bruce is going to pretend that this is totally out of nowhere, there's no way this isn't going to sound a little bit creepy. "I heard you wake up," Clark says, as apologetically as he can. "Thought maybe something was wrong."

Bruce blinks at him impassively. "No more than usual," he says with a smile that's clearly meant to dismiss, and—

And as much as Clark wants to point out that he knows when someone isn't okay, regardless of whether that's normal for them, they haven't quite gotten there yet. This is already the longest one-on-one conversation they've had in their entire lives; definitely the longest one that didn't go wrong within the first few seconds. He nods, instead, putting his hands in the pockets of his flannel pants. "Okay," he says. He could just... leave, let Bruce figure himself out on his own time; but Clark's never found it easy to let go when he's told to. "I'm having a hard time sleeping, myself, so I'm going to go make myself some cocoa. Let me know if you want some."

There's a slight extra tension in Bruce's shoulders that Clark swears wasn't there a second ago, but can't actually remember appearing. "I'm not breathing too loudly, am I?" Bruce asks, and it's a joke, but his eyes are absolutely serious.

Clark huffs a laugh. "No," he says. "No, you're fine. It's just..." He takes a breath, tries to figure out a way to succinctly explain exactly what's wrong with him in a way that won't make Bruce worry more. "Everything," he says. "The hearing is harder to tune out some nights, and... I'm not sure I really want to go to sleep?" Which could technically be taken as a normal  _ I don't feel like it _ instead of an  _ I'm afraid of what I'm going to see when I do, _ but Bruce doesn't look like he's taking it that way at all. Which would be... correct, but Clark isn't quite sure he wants anyone to know that right now.

"Anything different since the last time you were, uh..." Bruce waves his hand a little.

"Alive? No." Clark grins and he's pretty sure it looks normal. "But if you want to do any post-postmortem observation, you're going to have to let me make you that cocoa."

Bruce exhales something that's mostly a laugh. "Taking after your mother," he says, but he pushes himself up to his feet.

"Nothing wrong with that," Clark says, waiting for Bruce to take a step forward before turning to head to the kitchen.

* * *

Bruce helps as much as he possibly can, which basically just translates to physically selecting his own mug while Clark is occupied getting the milk out. Bruce expects the microwave to be involved somehow, and then the stove when Clark instead pulls a saucepan out and pours the milk straight into that, but then he just leaves it on the counter and vanishes into the pantry.

"Before you ask," Clark says as he emerges, unwrapping a solid block of chocolate mix, "I don't feel any different. Physically."

Bruce keeps holding onto his cup for lack of anything better to do with his hands. “And the rest?”

Clark gives a half-smile that’s a little tense, but not in a way that feels particularly worrisome yet; the expression of someone who’s halfway through a double shift on a day they weren’t even supposed to be working. “Weird,” he says as he puts the chocolate into the pan. "Honestly, it's mostly..." His mouth twists. "The same stuff, but more of it? Like, I'm just... it's a lot to take in. A lot of things have happened." He pulls open a drawer, procures a rubber spatula. "It's probably going to take me a few months to... to get used to everything that's happened. Not that I can't help," he hastens to add, the space around his eyelids darkening just before it catches ablaze, as he—in a move as bizarre and startling as it is weirdly endearing—starts to heat the pan with his eyes. (Laser vision? Heat vision? For all of his and Luthor's combined notes on Superman, Bruce still isn't completely sure what that particular ability does or is; just that being on the business end of it is not an advisable course of action.)

"That wasn't what I was worried about," Bruce says, voice low. "We've been managing without you, just me and Diana. With Barry and Victor, along with what I imagine will be a lot less trouble now that everyone knows you're back... you can take as much time as you need, Clark. Really."

Clark looks at him like he's not sure what to make of Bruce. ( _ Bruce _ isn't sure what to make of himself. He'd thought himself capable of maintaining an impassive kind of distance when he needed to; after this past week, he's beginning to wonder if Superman doesn't pose a permanent exception to that.) "I honestly don't know that staying out of things will help. I won't jump right back into it until I know I won't just collapse out of the sky and cause more trouble than I solve, but I want to get back into the swing of things as fast as I can."

Bruce considers this. And then he dismisses it. "You died, Clark," he says. "Violently and traumatically, both physically and emotionally. If you weren't suffering from post-traumatic stress before, you will be now, and you shouldn't be out in the field like that." And then, before Clark can explain all of the reasons that's hilarious when it comes from Bruce, he smiles flatly and continues. "Speaking from experience."

Clark... switches his eyes off, stirs, and then turns that crawling red blaze back on for a second. "I don't know if that's an option for me anymore," he says, and his voice is a kind of honesty that hurts to hear. "You... don't have to pay attention if you don't want to. I can't  _ not _ hear things happening, and now that I know I can do something about them... it usually feels like I have to."

Fair enough. Bruce had assumed, in some way, that Clark's apparently perfect control over his strength and his speed and his relationship with gravity and whatever the hell his eyes could do meant that he had perfect control over his senses too. If that's not true... god, Bruce doesn't know how he can bear it. How he can  _ be _ Clark at all, instead of running himself into the ground as Superman, every second of every day.

“What if you didn’t have to hear them?” he asks, without even really meaning to. His job has never been to  _ alleviate _ suffering, not on an individual level, but he's been trying to make changes in how he does almost everything else. There's no reason to overthink this.

Clark blinks the crimson from his irises and looks up at him curiously. (The echo of luminescence inside his pupils in the last second before it fades... tightens Bruce’s lungs in a way he’s sure it shouldn’t.) “I’m sure you’ve got more kryptonite lying around, but it wasn’t exactly a  _ painless _ way of losing my powers,” he says, with an apologetic little smile, like he’s terribly sorry for the inconvenience when really he’s drawing a line he won’t budge from unless he has to.

(He could just say  _ no. _ )

“I wasn’t talking about the kryptonite,” Bruce says, scoffing, swallowing the surge of guilt that comes with just thinking the word. “But that can’t be the only way to do this. There has to be something that could... hell, that could let you  _ sleep, _ at least. Without hurting you. Dampening you, or distracting you enough...”

Clark’s brow furrows slowly as he turns it over. “I’ve always made my own distractions when I had to,” he says. “Isolation... helps—a little, anyway; I can’t hear everything in the entire world."

Also news to Bruce, but he keeps quiet.

"Mostly, when I turn up on the other side of the planet, it’s because I heard someone talk about it closer by. News channel on someone’s TV, them trying to get ahold of someone they know...” Clark begins stirring again suddenly, as if he forgot the very thing he talked Bruce in here to do. “But it’s still a longer range with nothing happening than I’m likely to get outside of the Arctic, and I’d rather not be  _ totally _ alone right now?”

Bruce nods as if he can begin to understand, as if his experience being the one to watch someone die can possibly translate into how it feels on the other side. “We still have the scout ship,” he says quietly. “And some of the best stealth technology in the world is in the Cave. I know your species didn’t have these powers on their own world; we can figure out how to take you down to baseline,  _ your _ baseline, without hurting you.”

And there’s that look again, like Clark isn’t sure he heard Bruce right but he hopes he did. “If you say so,” he says. “It does sound pretty nice. I mean,” he amends, gesturing vaguely with the spoon, “I’ve been hearing the others taking care of a lot of things already, but... it’d be nice not to have to worry if it’s my turn yet.”

“We take care of each other,” Bruce says, and it can’t be a lie because it’s a  _ vow. _ Going forward, not looking back. “We weren’t doing it before. I intend to change that.”

Clark looks at him, expression like—like someone’s asked him if he’s okay for the first time in his life, if Bruce is being clinical about it—before the rawness melts into a smile. “Sounds pretty nice,” he says, grinning at the saucepan before starting to pour the milk into his cup. “Wait,” he adds after a second, reaching out to take Bruce’s mug too. “There's  _ really _ a Cave?”

Bruce honestly forgot Clark wasn't there for that part, isn't prepared for the edge of humor in his tone. Certainly not after the last few turns in their conversation. “It’s—” Bruce hedges, not sure of exactly how he's about to be laughed at but absolutely sure that it's going to come. “It’s my... base of operations.”

Clark’s eyes dart up to Bruce’s, eyebrows raising. “So,” he says. “The Bat operates out of—”

“I didn’t name it,” Bruce interrupts, taking his cup back as soon as it’s offered and trying to drown the prickle of Clark’s amusement with a too-hasty sip.

(The cocoa is disturbingly perfect for a drink heated with someone’s eyes. It doesn’t even burn his tongue a little. Bruce tries not to overanalyze it.)

“Sure,” Clark says. “You sleep hanging upside down too?”

“Not physically possible for humans,” Bruce says, instead of a more reasonable refutation that would be better for his dignity; but it pulls a quiet, delighted laugh out of Clark, and he can’t possibly regret being the cause of that just yet.

* * *

There really is a Cave, as it turns out. Part of it even looks like it deserves the name, but from what Clark can tell, the  _ vast _ majority of it just looks like a finished basement that never really stops happening. (If he squints through the walls far enough, he can see the outlines of a natural cave system, carved out and reinforced and expanded over a period of years. He'd honestly kind of assumed that the first reported sightings of Batman had been exaggerated or made up or dated incorrectly at best, but... he must have really been active for that long, as impossible as it sounds for a human being to throw himself off of buildings at people shooting him for twenty years without getting himself killed.)

Clark knows this isn't normal for Bruce—could guess just based on what he already knew, but has it confirmed by almost every possible source along the way. There's a tension in Bruce's shoulders, almost hidden by the armor plating and the cape (but not quite all the way, not to Clark's eyes), when the ceiling closes over the plane and it unfolds to let them out. Alfred doesn't look precisely surprised to see him, but he doesn't seem like he was  _ expecting _ Clark, either—an expression so frustratingly opaque that it feels more fit for an intelligence officer than a valet, but Clark knows what Alfred looks like when he's surprised by something, now. It's a little too close to that.

"Mr. Kent," Alfred says. "A pleasure, as always."

Clark tries to shake off the impenetrable weirdness of being addressed by his surname when he's wearing Superman's clothes. ( _ Just in case, _ Batman had said. Probably nobody would even notice the plane in the first place, and if they did they shouldn't be able to look inside, but  _ just in case, _ it probably shouldn't reveal an ordinary-looking human-shaped man wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Which was fair, if a little judgemental in the way he said it.)

“Thanks,” he says, smiling in a way he knows looks a little like he doesn’t know what’s going on. “You too.”

Alfred glances back towards the armor-plated menace pretending to ignore them. “I’ve done what I could with the bedroom in the Cave, but I can’t help but notice you didn’t explain why you needed it.”

Bruce brushes past them both without an acknowledgement. “He’s moving in,” he says, and it’s—not exactly the first Clark has heard of it, but definitely the first he’s heard of it in those words. He coughs on nothing.

And there’s Alfred’s  _ definitely _ surprised face. So at least he’s not alone. “Far be it from me to accuse you of moving too  _ quickly _ in a relationship,” he says, following behind Bruce’s unnervingly brisk pace, “but—”

(Clark chokes a little.)

“Just until we can reasonably let Clark Kent see the light of day without raising too many questions about the timing,” Bruce continues, as Clark helplessly follows Alfred into the hallway. “It isn’t permanent. ...And it isn’t like that.”

“Of course,” Alfred says. “How very reasonable. A reporter can certainly be brought back from the dead with no questions at all, so long as it happens at least a few months off from Superman doing the same.”

Clark hadn’t even known the human voice could  _ be _ that flat.

“We’ll figure something out,” Bruce says tersely, vanishing down a stairwell.

Alfred stops, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling and just looking up for a bit. “I take it you don’t want to take him for the tour yourself,” he calls out, sounding much closer to an irritated parent than an employee.

If Bruce answers, Clark doesn’t hear it. So either this hearing thing will be much easier than expected, or he’s just being quiet.

Alfred straightens up. “Well,” he says. “Since Master Bruce is being his usual self, I suggest we begin without him. Shall we?”

* * *

Clark isn’t actually shown very much of the Cave. The path Alfred leads him on is incredibly meandering in a way that never quite crosses over itself, giving a very convincing impression of thoroughness; but Clark can hear the echoing depths in the distance, thousands of square feet that he’s being expertly steered away from. He wonders if Alfred’s done this before, if he has the perfect route for confusing and dazzling newcomers already planned out.

(It was probably planned out years ago. Clark had somehow found less about Batman's previous allies than he had about Batman himself, back when he was just researching from a distance, but there'd been something about an accomplice once. Maybe two. Some files from a murder investigation, a 16-year-old kid beaten to death in an empty building, identity hidden behind a codename. Clark had been content to pile it on the ever-growing list of Batman’s sins, child endangerment taken to an insane extreme, but somehow it doesn’t feel... right anymore.)

“I’ve sorted out a room down here, but you’re of course welcome to leave the  basement whenever you wish,” Alfred says, snapping Clark out of his reverie. “One of the benefits of Master Bruce’s public persona is no small measure of eccentricity, particularly when it comes to his privacy. It may not look like it, but it’s hard to get a good angle to spy on the contents of this house. I designed the landscaping to be somewhat... inconvenient.”

It’s probably safer not to ask if he really means  _ laser guns in the rosebushes _ or if he just sounds like he does. “I’m glad I never thought to come snooping around,” Clark says, amused, as they mount what seems like the hundredth individual set of stairs.

Alfred snorts. “They wouldn’t do much against you, I assure you. I just wish  _ he’d _ been a bit quicker on the uptake that we were on the same side.”

Clark feels himself falter. “It isn’t all on him.”

Alfred pushes an honest-to-God revolving bookcase open before giving him a steady, no-nonsense kind of stare. “You tried to reason with him a great deal more than most would, and  _ far _ more than he deserved at the time. Thankfully, I think he’s finally figured it out.”

* * *

Clark is as careful not to intrude as he can be, but there's not much he can do about it there—especially not when his first day there is marked with Bruce knocking on the doorframe and casually interrogating him about his hearing. Its range normally (Clark's never really sat down and tried figuring it out to the exact mile, which doesn't seem to be what Bruce was hoping for), its range currently (because apparently there are huge sections of the Cave that are already soundproofed to hell and back), how much detail he can still clearly make out with other noises going on in the background (not much unless he's focusing or unless the detail is someone screaming for help or something similarly difficult to ignore). And that's not particularly weird, especially not for a given measure of Bruce's insane thoroughness with everything, except that he changed into his civilian clothes before he did it. It's one thing to talk to Bruce Wayne in a kitchen in Kansas and know that he's Batman; it's, apparently, another thing entirely to talk to Bruce Wayne in the middle of Batman's fortress, surrounded by Batman's gadgets and surveillance systems and  _ oceans _ of automated security whirring away in the background. Like bringing both halves of the man's identity closer together somehow make it make less sense instead of more.

Which is probably part of how he's kept it secret for so long.

(It's definitely that that's got him so off-balance and not the way Bruce's eyes are absolutely trained on him, his forehead creased just slightly in focus, the gears in that unexpectedly brilliant brain almost tangibly turning. Clark's never been good with being the center of attention, and he still hasn't talked to Lois yet about where the hell they go with this, and—and it's been a long day.)

* * *

Five months, apparently, is a reasonable delay between Superman and Clark coming back. (It would take a fraction of that time just to fabricate the story, maybe half of it to clean up most of the holes; the rest, as far as Clark can tell, is just extra delays.)

It's really, really weird for the first couple of weeks, living there. Clark does his best not to intrude, but it feels impossible to avoid it; every inch of the Cave was specifically designed for Batman's mission, and it's not like going upstairs and wandering around Bruce Wayne's home feels much better even if he doesn't seem to spend much time in it. Avoiding Bruce entirely feels rude, constantly being in his space even worse; and as kind as Bruce and Alfred are, as much experimental soundproofing as they do even just in the first week, it takes time for Clark to figure out his equilibrium.

(Bruce catches him staring the first time Clark sees the display case. Clark isn't going to ask why it's there, but Bruce either misunderstands his distraction or wants to redirect it, because—

"Robin," he says. "My second."

There's something deeper in the way he says  _ second, _ like he's referring to something much more intrinsic to him than a partner or a sidekick; and he only started researching Bruce Wayne after he heard the Bat's voice and recognized it, but he'd had a kid who died, didn't he, and—

"I'm sorry," Clark says, and it will never be enough but he doesn't know what else to say.)

But it gets easier. He does figure it out, or at least get used to the new locale. The regular interrogations are a little weird, but the occasional field trips to take care of (and, when she's feeling up to it, also interrogate) the scout ship are nice. It doesn't feel like home, but it starts to feel comfortable. Nice. Maybe too much of one or the other of those things, but there are only so many places Clark has felt this... Well, this little like he was the weirdest person in the room at any given moment. Even when one or another of the League isn’t dropping (or swimming, depending on which entrance they feel like trying and whether they’re Arthur) into the Cave.

Gotham is painfully, distractingly loud—but he can handle that. He can.

(Until it’s not a stranger’s voice anymore.)

* * *

It’s barely even a sound. It’s a harsh catch of breath, a stunned second of silence; boots scuffing too loudly and the sound of a grapnel, and for six lurching seconds Clark can’t even figure out why he’s frozen in place.

(When he was fighting Bruce, one of the times he’d struggled through the kryptonite gas; he’d hit the Bat hard enough to hear the crack under the armor, and there had been that sharp modulated gasp. When he was still trying to figure out if and how and  _ why _ he was alive, when he’d thrown Bruce into that car—)

Clark doesn’t break the sound barrier until after he’s outside, but it’s a near thing.

It’s shockingly easy to find Bruce, some part of Clark innately tuned to him without noticing it; he'll find a way to worry about it later, but for now he's just obscenely grateful for knowing exactly whose muffled heartbeat that is. The immediate danger looks like it's already passed, Bruce pulling himself up to wedge himself on the sloped edge of a roof with no one around, but he's slower than he should be. Clark can't see any blood on the matte black of the Suit in the shadows, but he can smell it, and it's in a larger quantity than he's comfortable with. But Bruce is still moving, and he seems... not okay, but not as badly off as that initial surge of fear had implied.

"What are you doing here?" Bruce says. He's got the modulator on, but his voice underneath it is carefully free of inflection. His posture is stiff, but it's hard to tell if it's because of whatever injury he's sporting now or because Clark startled him while he was in the middle of repositioning.

Clark hovers closer. He knows better than to assume that Bruce isn't hurt badly just because he's not acting like it, but he can't help but feel a little off-balance at it anyway. "I thought that was pretty obvious," he says. "I heard you got hurt. What happened?"

Bruce looks at him in silence for a few seconds before shifting, propping his forearm against the roof tiles to tuck himself more securely against it. "I guess I don't have to ask how the soundproofing is going," he says, and Clark has to make a conscious effort not to roll his eyes.

"Bruce," he says.

"Callsigns, Superman."

"There's no one around," Clark points out. "And you're one to talk after Russia."

Batman remains silent, which Clark will count as a win. Except for the fact that he got distracted from what he was actually asking about, and—

Ugh. "Batman," he says anyway. "I'm here to help."

"You're here to recover."

"You didn't complain when I left the Cave before."

Bruce's jaw tightens. "It's nothing," he says. "Someone got lucky, that's all."

"If it's nothing, then let me take you back and have a look at it."

Bruce's eyes are baleful. “I can make it home from here,” he says.

“Not as quickly.” Clark crosses his arms. “We’re supposed to be a team, aren’t we?”

Bruce shuts his eyes.

* * *

Bruce has been carried by Superman before, but it hadn’t been particularly pleasant. Deservedly so, he’s the first to admit; but he still can’t stop himself from tensing up as Clark scoops him off the roof and pulls away. There’s something viscerally wrong, something the eyes relay but the animal brain flatly refuses to accept, about simply hovering thirty storeys off the ground without any apparent means of suspension. He ignores it by staring resolutely at Clark’s right shoulder as he is shifted into a pietà-esque cradle, which is certainly a new experience for him. Not one he’s certain he likes, but he doesn’t enjoy being carried in the first place.

“Hold on tight,” Clark says.

“I don’t think I’m in any danger of getting dropped,” Bruce replies dryly.

“No,” Clark agrees with a disarming smile. "But it makes me feel better.”

Bruce snorts at the ridiculousness of that statement, but does at least make an effort to get a better grip on Clark. His head pounds between breaths; he can tell just from the lurching wrongfootedness that he has a concussion. The rest is probably just scrapes, but fighting Superman isn’t something he’s prepared to do at the moment, so he doesn’t continue his token protest any further.

“Get us out of here before someone sees you,” Bruce rasps with less irritation than he expects.

“Yes, sir,” Clark says, and heads towards home.

Bruce had braced himself, used to seeing Clark shoot off into the distance; but his acceleration this time is slower, more comfortable for mere mortals to deal with. Bruce’s neck appreciates the gesture, even if the rest of him is perversely annoyed by it.

If nothing else, it does get him a view of the city that’s difficult to achieve on his own. As much as he loves the dirt of it, the bitterness and stubbornness and spiteful  _ fuck you _ kind of vibrancy in the city on the ground level, he can’t deny that it’s prettier from up here.

And then the wind finally picks up enough to sting his eyes closed; he doesn’t bother opening them again until he feels Clark bank and lower them, hears the skimming splash of a toe tip grazing water.

“Mind opening the door for me?” Clark asks. “I don’t want to fly you through an  _ actual _ cave.”

"Appreciate it," Bruce says, letting go of Clark to click his gauntlet open and signal the lake entrance to unfold itself. If anyone could fly through the claustrophobic turns of the ground level Cave entrance without bashing a passenger to pieces on the rocks, it would be Superman, but Bruce would prefer to die of something other than a heart attack.

(Part of him momentarily wonders on when, exactly, he started trusting Clark's control over himself to this level. Likely when Clark spent half an evening throwing him through walls like it was nothing but still managed to keep most of the damage to the Suit and not the man inside it.)

Clark descends into the elevator shaft like he's being lowered on a string, touching down next to the Fox as the ceiling eases shut behind them and the lights snap into life. Bruce unhooks a leg from the crook of Clark's elbow; Superman doesn't have to let him go, but he does, and the only fuss he makes is a needless attempt to balance Bruce when his feet hit the ground.

"What do you need me to do?" Clark asks after a moment of silence. "Should I get Alfred, or...?"

Bruce knew it was pointless to hope that Clark would drop it, but he still grimaces. "No," he says. "He already knows." (Alfred snorts in his ear, but keeps whatever comments he might have to himself.)

"Oh." Clark shifts uncomfortably. "Well, if there is anything I can do..."

Bruce reaches back to start detaching the cowl from the rest of his armor, wincing as the movement pulls at his shoulder. "I've gotten hurt on patrol before, Clark. You don't have to do anything."

"I'm not offering because I  _ have _ to."

He pulls the cowl off. His temple pulses sharply. "I won't stop you if you want to help," he says, working on the clips on the rest of his armor as the elevator glides to a halt. "But it won't need much."

_ "The fact that you think it needs any isn't reassuring," _ Alfred says dryly.  _ "Perhaps you should have him check for brain damage." _

"Nothing that serious," Clark pipes up, a little louder.

Alfred pauses.  _ "Well. Thank you." _

* * *

He really is mostly okay, and Clark almost feels embarrassed for how quickly he ran off. (But if Bruce  _ hadn't _ been—)

There's no way that he can help Bruce with the rest of his armor when he's not even sure how it all goes together in the first place, so he leaves to get a wet rag and raid the nearest first aid stash that looks like it's for anything less serious than emergency surgery. (Which turns out to be the hard part by itself. He's not sure whether to feel reassured by Bruce's paranoia or concerned that it feels necessary at all.)

When he gets back, Bruce has changed back into his civilian clothes and is sitting on a workbench, one sleeve rolled up to the elbow as he inspects the growing bruise on his wrist.

"Hey," Clark says.

Bruce looks up. His smile starts in his eyes but barely touches his mouth and Clark’s chest does something terrible. And then he sees, properly and in decent lighting, the purpling bruise creeping towards Bruce’s eye socket and the blood in his hair, and it does it again but not nearly so pleasantly.

“Hey,” Bruce answers, like he’s not about ten seconds away from bleeding on his shirt. “Here to replace Alfred’s diagnostic equipment?”

Clark closes the rest of the distance, putting everything on the workbench next to Bruce and touching his forearm. “Something like that,” he says, pulling Bruce’s wrist a little closer. It looks like it hurts, but—hell, probably not any more than any of the other, healed injuries scattered across Bruce’s entire skeleton. “It isn’t broken,” he says, letting him have it back.

“I didn’t think it was,” Bruce says, and then hesitates. “But it’s good to know.”

He’s trying, Clark guesses. “I’m more worried about this,” he says, picking up the damp rag and motioning to Bruce’s temple with it. “Can I?”

Bruce shrugs, folding his hands in his lap and angling his head obediently. “It looks worse than it feels,” he says. “I got knocked around a little, didn’t catch myself in time. It’s just a scrape with delusions of grandeur.”

“Some delusions,” Clark murmurs, doing his best to clean the drying blood away from its source without reopening anything. “Sorry about this,” he adds, hearing Bruce’s heart rate tick up into something a little more stressed.

“Happens,” Bruce says, closing his eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”

It’s hard not to. It’s hard not to worry about  _ anything _ involving Bruce at this point, given everything Clark knows about him now; but that’s not a conversation he feels like having. “Did you catch them?” he asks instead, folding the rag up and continuing his work with a less bloodied part of it. It doesn’t look like a proper cut, now that he can start seeing the shape of it underneath Bruce’s hair; so he’d been honest about it being more of a scrape, at least.

There’s still a worrying amount of blood to clean up, though.

“I didn’t have to,” Bruce says. “GCPD wasn’t far behind. Just needed to make sure they couldn’t run.”

Clark frowns, remembering—

“They’ll heal,” Bruce says, turning his head a little to meet Clark’s eyes. “I did listen to you. Just started it too late.”

And that’s much too... much of a conversation to have when one party is concussed and the other is trying to figure out where he stands. “Thank you,” Clark answers, gently but firmly turning Bruce’s head back where it was so he can get back to work.

Bruce snorts, but doesn’t say anything or fidget too much, and that’s more than Clark was really expecting of him. He makes short work of the rest of the blood without reopening the wound and he takes the opportunity to inspect it more closely, threading his fingers through Bruce’s hair to guide it away from the splotchy bruise on his scalp.

Bruce closes his eyes. Attuned as he is, Clark can’t avoid hearing his pulse relax and slow, doesn’t want to resist carding his fingers away from the injury to test the cause; and—

_ Oh, no, _ he thinks, as quietly as he can, like there’s any risk of Bruce noticing.

And then he forces himself to let go and reach for the antiseptic, and he doesn’t think about the tiny annoyed sound Bruce makes when he breaks contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inb4 this spawns like 6 other parts while I'm trying to work on treat
> 
> edit: it totally did


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He calls Lois first, because he’s trying to be more considerate than he was in the midst of his showing-up-uninvited-on-balconies stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's 100% Clark talking to Lois, which is actually why it's shorter and split apart from the others; I know that referencing Clark/Lois isn't exactly everybody's jam, but I like wrapping up loose ends before going forward too far, so this seemed like a good compromise. If you just straight-up skip this one, you won't be missing much plot-wise; it's just an amicable breakup scene with a couple of jokes at everybody's expense in it. Woo!

He calls Lois first, because he’s trying to be more considerate than he was in the midst of his showing-up-uninvited-on-balconies stage. Which is definitely for the best, because she’s paralyzingly busy and will be for the next few days; “but,” she says, voice apologetically bright over the phone, “I’m pretty sure I’ll have a couple of hours to talk on Sunday? Lunchtime-ish?”

(“Your lunchtime or a normal human lunchtime?”

“Oh, like you’d know the difference.”)

It feels... weird, dressing up in the suit just to see her. But it would look weirder for everyone else if they happened to see him flying in a t-shirt and pants, and living with Batman is giving him a little more paranoia about that than he used to have.

She’s in her apartment, but judging by the half-unpacked roller suitcases taking up most of the bed, she hasn’t been here for a while. Clark touches down on the balcony; the door is open, but he knocks on the frame anyway.

Lois looks up from her computer, a smile breaking out when she sees him. “Hey,” she says, getting to her feet. “Hey, come in. Anyone sees you out there, Perry’ll be on my ass to get something useful out of you.”

“Well,” Clark says, wandering in. He tries putting his hands in pockets that aren’t there and tries to disguise the movement by grabbing for his cape instead, tucking it closer around himself. “We can’t have that. Yet, anyway.”

“Yet,” Lois agrees. “Not that I should be allowed to do any real work, of course. All things considered.”

Right. Yes. “Yeah,” he says inanely.

“Yeah,” she agrees. Her fingers find a pencil on the table and twirl it absently. There’s a tension in them both, the weeks of Clark stubbornly refusing to be dead again bringing the awkward edges between them to the forefront; and while neither of them are cowards, Lois has always been the one more prone to charge at the nearest weak spot headfirst. Even if it’s her own. “You know, there are easier ways to break things off,” she says with a tiny chuckle.

Clark winces. “I wasn’t...” That’s obvious. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know,” she says, shaking her head. “I know. Sorry, that was... was that insensitive?” A slightly harried smile crinkles her eyes. “I’m not used to people coming back from the dead. I don’t know the etiquette for it.”

Clark laughs silently, looking down to the floor. “Me neither,” he says.

“Well,” she says. Her smile stills, distracted concern. “At least we’re both at a loss, I guess.” Her hand moves to her collarbones as if to play with a necklace, but there’s no chain there.

They both breathe and, for a few seconds, say nothing.

“I feel like... we maybe started this off on a weird foot,” she says.

Clark can feel the world turning underneath him. He expects fear, but it doesn’t come. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess I—well. It didn’t feel like it had been months for me.”

Lois looks so terribly, jarringly sad. For all he’s gone through for this, it feels as though everyone around him had heavier burdens to carry from his death than he did. (Diana’s quiet relief. His mother’s hitching sobs into his shoulder. Lois’s silent, dignified sorrow. Bruce’s single-minded, almost suicidal determination, the flat mulishness in the set of his face, the plea in his eyes.) “Yeah,” she says. “I can’t—we were having problems and then you  _ died _ and you were going to propose and I—moving on didn’t feel like an option for a long time. And I love you, I really do, but you coming back...” She shakes her head almost imperceptibly even to him, eyes leaving his face to look at her kitchen table instead. “It doesn’t make everything magically disappear.”

It doesn’t. And things were going sideways before he died, in the worst way, in the way that hurt the most out of every possibility ( _ I don’t see how you can love me and still be you, _ when that dichotomy is what he’s always been afraid of, when he’s been running and hiding his whole life and only just  _ started _ to accept being him), and...

The pain is still fresh for him. It isn’t for her.

“That isn’t why I was going to do it,” he says. “To propose, I mean. I don’t want you to feel like you didn’t have a choice.” Clark gives a self-conscious little laugh. “It’s kind of why I was planning on  _ asking, _ but... well, that’s not how it shook out.”

Lois chuckles, looking at her hands. There’s the slightest tan line at the base of her left ring finger, but it’s empty. “It didn’t feel right,” she says. “To refuse it, after you’d died. And I couldn’t exactly say ‘not yet’ to a relationship that didn’t exist anymore.”

Clark nods. He wants to look at her, but he doesn’t. “Yeah,” he says. And—she’s been carrying this conversation the whole time, which isn’t exactly fair. “I’m the one who lost time,” he says, straightening up and meeting her eyes. “I’m not asking anyone to pretend the last few months haven’t happened. Least of all you.”

Lois smiles tightly. “Thank you,” she says.

“So,” Clark continues, after a slow breath. “I’m gonna let you take the lead on this one, Lo. Whatever you’re comfortable with. Even if it’s us not talking at all for a while; I mean, it’s not like you and Ma are the only ones who know who I am anymore, if that takes some pressure off.”

Lois snickers. “I heard you were rooming with Bruce Wayne,” she says. “Shame I can’t tell Cat about it. She’d be all over it.”

Clark isn’t sure if he should laugh or be genuinely afraid. He settles for a nervous  _ heh. _ “I can imagine,” he says.

Lois moves, crossing the room to get to her desk, picking something up and looking at it in the palm of her hand for a few seconds. “I don’t want to not talk to you,” she says, turning around to walk back over to him. “But... all things considered, I think it’d be better for us to start from scratch. Figure out how to be friends before jumping into anything else.”

The ring feels cold in his palm, just an echo of warmth from her hand. Clark closes his fingers around it without looking down. “Fair enough,” he says. His voice is steadier than he thought it would be; the weight in his hand carries an ache with it, yes, but it’s nothing he can’t bear. Not even close.

“And if we work back up to that point,” Lois says, eyes soft, “then you can ask me for real. But we shouldn’t sit around waiting on each other, and rushing things... didn’t go so great the last time.” She nudges his elbow with her hand. “I don’t mind the rescues, though. Those can stay if Diana doesn’t get there first.”

Clark sees the change of subject and pounces on it. “Diana?” he asks. “I thought she lived in France?”

Lois shrugs. “We’ve run into each other a few times,” she says. “And hey, you don’t get to interrogate me too much until you talk to Cat.” Lois twists her mouth. “Not that she’d be able to  _ publish _ most of the stuff I care about hearing.”

Clark snorts, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’d have anything to say that  _ she’d _ be interested in hearing, though. Bruce is... Bruce is a better man than he gives himself credit for.”

He can't exactly parse her expression then. "He's been doing better," she says. "But a lot of stuff is gonna have to happen before I'm ready to give him much of any."

Bruce made mistakes, same as Clark did. "He's doing his best," Clark says, but knows enough about the set of Lois's mouth to leave it at that.


End file.
